


Much That Once Was Is Lost

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Series: GoodDad!Bruce Adopts His Children [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Light Physical Violence, Mentions of the rest of the Batfam - Freeform, Parent Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-23 02:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14322486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: Tim had thought becoming an orphan would feel different somehow. Like in the moment his father’s chest fell and failed to rise again, there would be this great rending of reality, forever hewing his life into Before and After.That was how it had worked for Bruce. For Dick. Maybe that was how it worked for him, too, and he was too numb to notice it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a moody, overly purple character study-esque piece looking at Tim immediately following Jack's death. I'm basing all this off the same characterization/details as what I used in the second chapter of my [Mother Bruce](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178267/chapters/32681832) fic.

Tim had thought becoming an orphan would feel different somehow. Like in the moment his father’s chest fell and failed to rise again, there would be this great rending of reality, forever hewing his life into Before and After.

That was how it had worked for Bruce. For Dick. Maybe that was how it worked for him, too, and he was too numb to notice it.

But really, Tim reflected as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside, not much had changed. He was still coming home to an empty, neglected house. Setting the shoebox-sized container with his father’s hospital belongings down on the foyer bench felt no different than dropping off his bookbag after school. The bag had been heavier.

Tim’s fingers ran lightly across the marble table, taking with them a thin layer of dust. The dust and the stale taste in the air were the only change from the last time he had stepped inside the mansion. . . How long had it been? Tim could feel his mind trying to roll back the wheel of time to count the space of days between this moment and the last time he had disturbed his childhood home. But he felt. . . He didn’t have the word. _Numb_ was close. Close enough for now.

Bruce had trained all his proteges to walk without a sound, but Tim-who-was-Robin had never needed much practice. He was used to being a ghost in his own home. He made no noise now as he crossed the long entry hall in socked feet, shoes neatly lined by the front door. He walked in the dark, knowing nothing would be out of place. Trusting his feet to guide him safely, the way they always had after his midnight forays after the mysteries next door. In his head, Tim absently counted his steps, as he always did.

 _Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen_ , and _sixteen_ brought him to the stairs. Step seventeen took him up, and he remembered vaulting over the railing in his haste to reach the door. It was the only time in his life he could remember running inside. Why had he been running?

Tim puzzled over this mystery up through _thirty-nine_ , but not with any real force. It felt like poking at a gap in his teeth with an anesthetized tongue. He could feel the pressure and the hollow, but not the sensation of skin on skin. At the top of the stairs, he spotted the shattered vase.

_Oh._

He had clipped the vase with his bag and hadn’t slowed even when the fragile porcelain shattered on the hardwood. He had barely heard it over the rattle of the bottles as he slung the bag over his shoulder. The medicine bottles full of his father’s pills. There hadn’t been time to grab them before Jack Drake had been loaded in the ambulance. Hadn’t been time to load Tim in the ambulance with him before the white doors had slammed shut. So Tim had come after with the medical records and bottles swept from the bedside table into the canvas bag. That was Tim, always following behind.

Tim stopped in front of the fragments and waited to see if the memory of that frantic, awful day would be enough to rupture the cocoon around his brain and finally change this day into the After. 

And it had been a truly awful day. The home-care nurse had taken a half-day, so Tim had brought his schoolwork and internship paperwork to the house with him. He had expected to sit with his father as Jack slept, a vigil that would be worth the few hours of lucidity Jack would have after his rest. Instead, a cascade of falling blood pressure, spiking fever, and plummeting O2 levels had sent Tim diving for the bedside alert that immediately sent a distress call out to 911 and the closest hospital. 

The EMTs had arrived at the end of the longest five minutes of Tim’s life. Though it had seemed to take an eternity for them to arrive, they were gone in what felt like less than a blink. Tim had sprinted after them, leaving shattered vases and slammed doors in his wake. The ambulance must have caught the attention of someone next door, because suddenly Alfred had been in the drive, ushering Tim to one of Bruce’s many cars. Tim could only surmise that years of dealing with fear toxin patients had enabled the butler to piece together Tim’s panicked babbling, because Alfred had driven them both to the hospital with a single-minded speed that would have made even Bruce brace himself against the dash.

That had been... Tim blinked slowly and tapped out the time on his dusty fingertips. Five days ago. Five impossibly short, unbelievably long days from that horrible afternoon to now. 

Tim bowed his head and waited for the fog to clear, for the rupture to happen, but nothing came. So he stepped over the broken vase and continued down the hall to his parents’ room. Flipping on the lights, he looked around. Here, too, everything was just as he had left it. The overturned chair from his lunge for the alarm. The rumpled bed surrounded by droning machines. The splash of paperwork on the floor. The crumpled plastic debris from the EMTs. Shuffling forward, he nudged the wrappers and disposable medical instruments out of the way, then reconsidered and bent to pick up the trash. Litter was carefully sorted into trash and recycling and disposed of accordingly. The chair was righted. The paperwork was tidied and placed on the dresser. The machines were silenced, then unplugged, the insistent beeps fading into silence and the screens plunging into black.

Tim avoided making the bed and instead circled around to the closet that held his father’s clothes. His mother’s closet had been emptied after her death, its contents donated to charity, and Jack had never gotten around to filling it back up with any of his own things. Tim opened his father’s closet door and then stepped back. Everything was pin-straight and perfectly neat, arrange by article type, season, and color. Not a single pair of slacks or tie or carefully pressed polo had been touched since Jack had traded golfing gear for hospital-style pajamas. 

Tim knew every combination his father had worn. As a child, he had searched Jack’s clothes for some indication of his mood, reading tricot and Oxford like tarot cards and Ouija boards. But now, he couldn’t bring himself to touch them. As much as Tim had studied his father’s wardrobe, he had never thought to ask what Jack would want to wear to his own funeral. 

Tim stepped back from the closet until the back of his knees hit the bed, forcing him to sit. The numbness hadn’t faded, but weariness crashed over top of it, smothering him and crumbling his bones into ash. Tim tipped sideways and lifted his feet off the floor to curl up at the end of the bed. Turning his head, he buried his nose into the comforter and breathed in deeply. Beneath the bite of the ineffable smell of _hospital_ and _sick_ , Tim could smell the musk of his father’s aftershave, the light, fresh scent of their usual detergent, and, just barely, the floral notes of his mother’s perfume.

Tim had spent so many nights as a young boy just like this, curled up on their empty bed, face buried in the sheets, waiting for his parents to come home. They paid little attention to him when he was awake, but if he kept vigil for their return, dozing in a ball with the scent of home in his nostrils, sometimes he would be woken by a gentle hand in his hair, a touch on his back, a kiss on his forehead.

There would be none of that tonight, but he was so tired, and his body recognized this place. The fuzz that filled his mind was souring. Where before he had waited impatiently for the rending, he ran from it now, slamming doors between him and the thought that he wasn’t smelling home, but ghosts. That any clothes he pulled from the closet would disappear into the ground and be covered in dirt. No. He would not think these things. He would remain cocooned in the bubble wrap that protected him from reality. He would sleep.

As Tim fell into unconsciousness, his last thought to wonder if this was how it had felt to his father as he slept for the last time, and if he had been able to feel the moment when rest deepened into something else entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A hand gripped his shoulder. His eyelashes fluttered, nostrils full of cologne and detergent. He was ten again, six, four, waiting to be swept up into his father’s arms and carried off to bed._

A hand gripped his shoulder. His eyelashes fluttered, nostrils full of cologne and detergent. He was ten again, six, four, waiting to be swept up into his father’s arms and carried off to bed.

Tim rubbed his face against the comforter, letting the embroidered fabric scratch against his cheek.

“Dad?”

When no reply came, Tim forced his dry, scratchy eyes open and blinked up at the silhouette hovering over him. Not Dad, who hadn’t been “dad” since Tim was about seven, anyways. Not Jack. Bruce.

Bruce Wayne stood over the bed, gelled hair tumbling free across his forehead. Why was he here? Why was Bruce Wayne standing in Tim’s father’s room? Why--

Tim closed his eyes and dragged his hand down his face. The hospital. The dead-tone machines. The black bag stretcher.

“You disappeared from the hospital.” Bruce’s voice was quiet and gravelly, almost Batman but without the harshness. “We thought you’d needed some time alone, but then we couldn’t find you anywhere. Dick’s been frantic.”

Bruce lifted his hand from Tim’s shoulder as Tim sat up fully.

“Sorry,” Tim said. 

He still felt distant, apart from everything. Like part of his brain was standing off to the side, watching him sit in his parents’ lamp-lit room as Bruce Wayne loomed over him. That same part of his brain noted the unlooped necktie dangling from Bruce’s collar and the wrinkles in his dress shirt. None of that was normal. It was wrong, in some deep, ineffable way. Not as wrong as being woken up by someone who wasn’t Jack, though. Bruce smelled wrong. His cologne was wrong. This was all _wrong_.

“Sorry,” Tim repeated. “I came back to... the orderly gave me Jack’s things, and I needed to take them... They were moving him to the stretcher, you know?”

Bruce nodded and lowered himself to sit on the bed next to Tim. His weight made the mattress dip, and Tim leaned slightly in his direction but didn’t stop speaking. The fog, that sour, awful fog, was starting to lift, and with it came the words.

“All the tubes and the wires were out, finally. Just gone, tossed on the bed. I-I’d forgotten what he looked like without them, almost. But they were moving him to the stretcher and zipping him up, and I just kept staring at his knees.” Tim leaned forward, elbows digging into his legs, and barked out a raspy laugh.

“Jack has awful knees. They’re all knobby and bony, like a burl on a tree trunk. They make him look like he’s got chicken legs. He hates ‘em. That’s why he was always in slacks, even in the summer. But the gown didn’t cover them, you know? And I just kept thinking how much Jack would hate that.” Tim shook his head and fought a quiver deep down in his gut.

Bruce’s gaze flicked to the open closet door, then back to the boy next to him. “You came to get clothes.”

Bless Bruce for framing it as a statement, rather than a question he had to answer. The doctor had had so many questions. What funeral home did Tim want contacted? Did Jack have any end-of-life wishes? Was there an executor or legal representative that needed to be contacted? Was there any other next-of-kin? Did Jack want to be buried or cremated? _Is there anyone you can call, son?_

Alfred had gone home to prepare meals to bring back to the hospital. Dick had been picking Damian up from school. Bruce had stepped out to make some calls or handle the press or something; Tim hadn’t been following along at that point. All he knew was that he had been alone in that white, empty room when his father’s heart had stopped beating. Had been alone when the staff came to bag his father’s body like the remains of a picked-over dinner. Had been alone with no one to stop him as he walked out of the hospital and the five miles back to his empty home with its empty rooms to pick out clothes for an empty man who would never come home to find his son waiting up for him.

“I’m sorry if I worried anyone.” Tim knew he didn’t sound sorry, but trusted that Bruce would get that he was. Would be, if this were a different day. “I kept thinking that if I could get those clothes, something would feel right again.”

The bed creaked quietly as Bruce shifted his weight and rested a hesitant arm around Tim’s shoulders. “I’m sorry we weren’t there for you. We should have been. All of us, but especially me. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

Tim turned, still hunched over his knees, and looked up at Bruce with a quavering smile. “It’s okay. I’m always alone.”

He felt the word tumble from his lips and thud to the carpet, lifeless and ugly. It leaked where it lay, oozing over his feet and staining his socks. Because now that he had spoken it, this unshakeable truth of his life, Tim realized how it was more true than it had ever been before. His parents were gone and never coming back. Not for a party or a break between trips. Not for a change of shoes or a forgotten set of keys. Janet had been gone for so long, but having Jack around had sanded away the sharp edges of the loss. Tim had hoped that he could somehow make his father notice him again. He hadn’t needed them, hadn’t even liked them most days. But he had loved them, and now they were lost.

His house was filled with ghosts, its frames with skeletons, and its memories with dust.

He was alone.

The warmth of Bruce’s hand splayed against his back heightened the chill that swept over Tim’s body, wiping away the last cobwebbed strands of fog from his mind.

With the same unmarked silence as his footsteps, Timothy Jackson, the last of the Gotham Drakes, buried his face in his hands and wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I added more. Still moody. Poor Tim.
> 
> Also, in my head, Jack and Janet were those annoying people who tried to distance themselves from their offspring as much as possible by rejecting any parental names. They insisted on Tim calling them Jack and Janet, so him referring to Jack as "dad" was a slip on his part, and one that wouldn't have been welcome by a living Jack. (It probably also just about killed Bruce, sooooooo #sorrynotsorry on that.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorrow was relentless as gravity, regret as pervasive as dust.

Sorrow was relentless as gravity, regret as pervasive as dust. 

Bruce had guided Tim back across the lawn to the Manor and had sat next to the bed until Tim had fallen asleep, tears still glistening on his lashes. Tired as he had been, he might not have been able to sleep without the warmth of Bruce’s sandpapery fingers wrapped around his.

When he woke the next morning, Bruce was gone. His hands were cold. Tim lay in his bed and stared at the flickering sunlight on the ceiling as it slipped through the crack in the blackout curtains. The rest of the room was wreathed in gloom, shadows spilling from deep corners and puddling on the floor. His wrists rested twisted and limp against the bedsheets, and if he concentrated, he believed he could feel the slow thrum of his pulse against the cotton. It was the only part of him that moved, that and the barely perceptible rise of his chest.

Tim ached for the fog to return, to be robbed of his thoughts for a time. He felt pinned to the bed, grief spreading itself over his limbs with a thick molasses ooze. Not overly heavy, just inescapable. Relentless. Everywhere. He couldn’t move, but the same inertia wouldn’t apply itself to his thoughts. He kept thinking of his lack and his abundance.

No mother. No father. No home. No more sitting by Jack’s bed. No more quiet jokes to elicit faint smiles. No more saving up stories for the next moment of lucidity. No more reading Sam Spade aloud. No more hoping for a turn for the better.

A stuttering Morse code of heartbeats in an unending chain. A breath every five seconds times another seventy years. A mausoleum of memories. An entire lifetime alone.

His mouth was full of dust.

Tim closed his eyes. Took a breath. Held it fast. Let it out. Kept it out. Willed the grief to seep into his ribs and pin him fast. To keep his chest from rising again and continuing that horrible cycle of motion and overabundance.

His phone dinged, and his traitorous lungs filled again.

Tim sighed softly as his phone dinged a second time. More accurately, it meeped. Stephanie had changed her text tone setting to the cartoon roadrunner’s taunting call a few months ago. It had made him laugh at the time. Now he sympathized with the coyote.

At the fourth meep in a row, Tim lifted his hand--faintly surprised when his limbs responded--and grabbed the phone off the end table. Bruce must have plugged it in for him last night.

_Hey. Heard about Jack. I’m so sorry_

_Want me to come over?_

_Tim? If you don’t want me over just say so but I need you to answer me pls_

_Tim this is important pls give me a thumbs up or down or something_

Tim tried to picture raising his thumb to tap out a reply. Tried to picture his room holding more than one heartbeat. Tried to picture sitting up, giving a reassuring smile, maybe even talking. It all seemed too exhausting. He let his hand fall back to the bed and his phone to the floor.

He must have drifted, because a knock at the door woke him. He didn’t open his eyes.

Another knock, and then the door creaked open. Bruce? Alfred?

“Tim?” came the quiet call. Dick. Mother bird here to fuss. Tim decided to ignore him.

“Timbo, you awake? Alfred sent me with some food.” There was a slight rattle as Dick set the tray down on the desk, and then he was standing next to the bed, his hand on Tim’s shoulder.

“Tim? Sorry, bud, but I’m under orders to wake you up for some food.” Dick’s slender fingers gave him a gentle shake.

Tim pulled away and rolled so his back was to Dick, forearms curled so they blocked his face. _Go away._

The mattress dipped as Dick sat on the edge. “I know all you want to do right now is sleep, but that’s why you can’t.” Hands on Tim’s shoulders again, warmth seeping through his thin shirt, making him shiver at the contrast.

Dick was still talking. “Alfred made soup. It’s a little weird for breakfast, but it’s like after three now. You’ve been asleep for over twelve hours, and you need to get some food down.”

The hands were rolling him back over, and Tim let it happen. His systems were powered down and it seemed too much work to reboot. Too bad that meant he had no way to tell Dick that.

“Hey.” Dick lifted his hand off Tim’s shoulder to reach up and brush his hair off his forehead. “Tim. Tim, I need you to open your eyes and look at me, please.”

When that elicited no response, Dick repeated himself, but with the Batman steel and without the “please.” It was enough for slits to appear from which dull blue eyes peered.

“There’s my guy,” Dick said approvingly.

The flicker of warmth in Tim’s chest snuffed out almost as soon as it ignited, but even its brief existence was something. The flicker must have shown in his eyes, or perhaps Dick understood the way he often seemed to intuit these intimate personal things, that being someone’s anything _meant_ something to Tim even now—especially now—because the anxious smile on his face deepened and warmed.

“I’ve been sent on a mission. Operation Feed Tim, direct from Agent A, and you know how I can’t stand to fail ol’ Alf. So come on. Soup time.” Dick moved to help Tim sit up, but before he could, Tim closed his eyes again and turned his face away.

“Not hungry.” He expected Dick to attempt to cajole him or bully him into getting up, but instead, Dick sighed.

“I know, Timbo, I know.” Gentle fingers combed through Tim’s hair, touch as light as feathers. “I couldn’t eat for days after my parents. And I know a lot of what we went through was different, and there’s no comparing situations, but I know some things are the same.”

The heavy ooze of grief still covered Tim like a shroud, but wherever Dick’s fingers brushed his scalp, the warmth made him feel grounded instead of weighted. It only stayed for a second each time, but Dick was still combing his hair, so the sensation kept repeating.

“I know even the best words sound stupid and trite, so I’m not gonna give you a pep talk. Just facts. You’re our facts guy, right?” _Our._ He was. He had been. But it had been weeks since he had been on patrol or even in the Cave. Tim-who-was-Red-Robin. Tim-who-was-no-one.

“So, facts. You gotta eat. You gotta sit up and eat as much as you can from this bowl, so that you don’t disappoint Alfred, because you hate disappointing Alfred.” Tim hated disappointing anyone, but especially Alfred. Alfred was almost as bad as Bruce. “Worse, you might worry him. And I’m gonna sit here while you do, because as much as you might think you like being alone, you won’t realize how much it sucks until you’re not.”

Tim didn’t think those objectively counted as facts. They were more like opinions. But when Dick hooked him by the armpits and pulled him upright, he didn’t fight it. He didn’t exactly help, but he didn’t struggle when Dick helped him sit back against the headboard and place a tray across his lap.

“Chicken noodle. Heat and salt and the smell of Alfred stress-cooking. Eat up.” 

True to his word, Dick didn’t leave even as Tim worked his way through the bowl so slowly that it was cold before he could get halfway. That was fine. His stomach felt the size of a grape anyways. He placed the spoon back in the bowl and blinked dully at Dick.

“Good job, Timbo. Proud of you.” Dick picked up the tray and stood. Tim expected him to leave, but instead his older brother put the tray on the desk again and returned to sit on the bed.

“That’s another fact, by the way. I’m proud of you. I know Bruce is, too.”

It meant... it meant a lot. It did. But the words felt so empty. Dick and even Bruce weren’t the ones he wanted to hear them from. They never were, not really. Tim curled his knees up and brought his hands to his face. He would not cry. He wouldn’t. He was done. He would wrap himself in the fog again, drown in the pull of grief, and put himself far out of reach of any more tears.

But then Dick was sitting on the bed next to him, arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close. “We’re here for you, Timbo. You’re not alone. Not with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR I'm not trying to deceive you all. I think I'm done, and then my brain is like freaking Columbo. "Uh, just one more thing..."
> 
> At this point, I *think* there may be two chapters left in this thing. But I'm still keeping it marked complete because those two chapters may never come, and it can still be read as complete at the end of this chapter.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for the patience and support!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That was Dick’s way of helping, the physical presence. The others tried to help in their own ways.

The days that followed weren’t better, per se, but at least they weren’t spent staring up at the ceiling. Not after Dick got him through that first day. After seeing how lethargic Tim was, Dick had stayed with him. He hadn’t talked much, but when he did, it was all in “facts.” 

_The feelings won’t get any better, but they will get less. We’re going to be here with you every step. Text Steph back before she apparates here on sheer force of will._

Mostly, he just kept Tim grounded. Fingers in the hair. A hand on the back. A nudge of the shoulder. A bump of the knee. A hug. Dick was the most tactile person on the team by far, a trait that sometimes Tim found annoying and more than a little cloying. But right now he let the warmth of contact soak through him like a lizard under a sun lamp. Bit by bit, his sluggish heart began to beat again.

That was Dick’s way of helping, the physical presence. The others tried to help in their own ways.

Alfred made all of Tim’s favorite foods, insisted on making sure he had clean sheets every day, and conveniently found many things to clean in Tim’s general presence. It was nice to have the company, especially when Dick was at work. It helped to have that extra heartbeat floating in the silence.

Stephanie dropped by when she could, but that wasn’t often. Her multiple jobs and school kept her busy, as did helping out her mom. But she made herself present in other ways. Tim grew fond of the meeping ringtone again, as it meant the arrival of another silly meme, viral video, or cute baby animal photo. They were stupid things that fixed nothing, but he enjoyed the escape.

_Thanks for being here, Steph._

_Nowhere else I’d rather be ykt_

Cass wasn’t much for physical company or communication, but Tim knew she was around. Items would appear on his bed when he wasn’t around, all unbelievably soft. Fuzzy socks. A chenille blanket. A cashmere sweatshirt. Worn-just-right stretch pants. More stuffed animals than his bed could comfortably hold. The texture was her version of a hug and warmed Tim just as thoroughly as Dick’s one-armed embraces and Alfred’s presence.

Babs also wasn’t around, but she bent her prodigious skill set to helping Tim with the more practical considerations. She dug up the information for his parents’ various estranged relations and let them know about the funeral. Anything he didn’t have the brainpower for, she pitched in. Other than a quick aside the day after his father’s death, Babs didn’t offer her sympathy or condolences. She just worked quickly, pulled details and information into her web, wrapped them up, and handed them to Tim with a neat bow on top.

Perhaps it said something that Tim allowed Babs to offer this kind of assistance while firmly Bruce at arm’s length. _What_ it said, he wasn’t sure. But something. It wasn’t that Bruce wasn’t around. He was. He moved his work from WE to the Manor study and circled Tim in a twilight orbit, out of sight but never out of reach. He also checked in with Tim after patrol each night, something that Tim had never seen him do before but that Dick said used to be a regular occurrence in the early days. But he didn’t help. 

Bruce offered to cover expenses and Tim refused. He offered to help with Tim’s relatives and Tim refused. He offered to hire packers for the house and Tim refused. _My father. My problem. I’ll take care of it. Of him._ Around and around they went—a quiet offer, an equally quiet refusal, and Bruce backed off.

Tim, seated at the kitchen table with the Drake estate financial statements from Babs, paused to chew on the pen cap thoughtfully. Maybe that was Bruce’s true offer of help, the backing off. He was Bruce Wayne. Batman. He didn’t _back off_ , not when he thought he was right. Tim’s lips twitched slightly.

And then Damian walked in. Tim’s shoulders immediately tightened, and he looked down at his work. Damian was the only one who didn’t seem to get the “Tim Drake’s last surviving parent has died, so don’t be a flaming jerk” memo. Even Hood had disappeared off the face of the earth. It wasn’t that Damian was doing anything egregiously worse than before. But god, couldn’t a guy get a break for a _day_?

As Tim feared, Damian spotted Tim as he crossed the kitchen. 

“Drake,” the boy sneered, drawing out the name like a slur and popping the _k_ like a rattail against Tim’s skin. Tim kept his head down and his eyes on his papers.

“Still applying your lackluster mind to those reports, I see. Stare at them for too long and you’ll enfeeble your vision, and then what use will Father have for you?” A small hand darted out and snatched the top paper. Tim hadn’t even heard him approach.

Tim’s muscles tensed, on the verge of lunging at the boy, and Damian’s eyes glittered in anticipation as he danced backward. But then Tim uttered a low curse and slumped back in his chair.

“Give it back, Damian.” He was too busy for this. Too tired.

“Perhaps it’s not only your eyes and mind that are enfeebled,” Damian needled as he held the paper aloft. “You have been out of the field too long. Your reflexes lag, your stamina drains, your reaction time suffers. You’re a disgrace.”

“What’s it matter?” Tim shot back.

“You endanger the team with your shoddy skills!” Damian leaned forward and waggled the paper within Tim’s reach, then bounced away again. “You also endanger yourself, and don’t think I’ll risk a mission success in order to s—”

Tim knew the path this particular rant was going to take, and he wasn’t about to sit through it again. Not now. Not with his future spread across a simple oak table and an actual death still hovering over his every waking thought.

“I’m not going back out in the field, you idiot!” Tim snapped, frustration finally igniting in his voice. “I’m not on the team. In two weeks, I probably won’t even be living in this effing city!” He lifted his phone, its screen ablaze with unanswered messages, only some of them from Steph.

“My family is a pack of wolves, and they’re circling the carcass. I don’t know who’ll win out, but they’re already fighting over me, because whoever gets _me_ gets my trust fund. They'll drag me out of Gotham, shove me in a corner with their Tiffany lamp or 17th century burgomaster or whatever they decorate with, and forget about me, but I won't be allowed back here.” Tim slammed his phone down hard enough to risk cracking the screen. “Don’t you get it? You won, alright? I’m gone. I’m out. So why don’t you freaking BACK OFF, okay?!”

The kitchen rang with silence after Tim’s final roar. Damian’s smirk had slid off his face, wiped clean and stoic as he stared at Tim. Tim rested his elbows on the table and looked away, expecting the boy to gloat. And if Damian gloated, he might cry, and then he’d have to get out before Damian saw and had something _else_ to gloat about and--

He looked up when Damian carefully placed the paper back atop its fellows. The younger boy’s mouth worked for a moment, and then he murmured, “Apologies” before swiftly exiting the room.

Tim stared at the empty doorway, dumbfounded. After a bit, he shook his head and continued his work, but the strange encounter baffled him for the rest of the day. It was only when he was back in his room that night that he thought to pull out his laptop.

After Damian had first arrived and shown proclivities toward the homicidal, Tim had run a mirroring program on his electronic devices. For protection, of course. It was active, and dipping into the program now could show him Damian’s web history.

_Children grief loss  
Death of a parent  
Grief symptoms  
Normal grief symptoms  
Mourning rituals  
American mourning rituals  
Dealing with loss  
How to help someone you don’t like  
How to comfort someone who is grieving  
How to help a grieving person_

Most of the search results had been quickly opened and closed again, but one, a peer-reviewed psychological article, had been bookmarked. It dealt with manifestations of grief and combatting the more deleterious symptoms—including fatigue, lack of focus, apathy, depression, suicidal ideation, and isolation—with a strict adherence to normal behaviors by those surrounding the subject. 

That sonofagun. 

Tim closed his laptop and curled up on his bed. Tomorrow was the funeral, and the list of things he had to do grew longer even as his time at Wayne Manor shortened by the breath. But he had a new blanket that was the same green as his suit. His phone screen was aglow with one last goodnight message. A veritable mastermind was preparing his taxes. In a few hours, Batman and Nightwing, the caped protectors of two of the deadliest cities in America, would walk up the stairs and wish him goodnight. And when he closed his eyes, he saw search results.

Maybe, somehow, he’d be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this poor, socially ill adept, emotionally constipated mini-Bruce. He tries, bless him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanting things he couldn’t get was a reoccurring theme of Tim Drake’s life.

Wanting things he couldn’t get was a reoccurring theme of Tim Drake’s life. One might argue that it was a part of everyone’s life, but Tim believed that it repeated itself often enough in his life to be elevated to that of motif or possibly even TV Trope entry.  
When he was a boy, Tim had wanted siblings, a brother or sister be friends with. He had wanted a pet to fill the emptiness of the house. He had wanted parents who acknowledged his existence. He had wanted someone around to just give him a _hug_ every now and then. 

Then he had grown and had wanted nothing more than to be a part of the mysterious family next door. To swing across rooftops with them. To make a difference with them. To help relieve some of the reckless, self-destructive pain he saw. And those wants had been granted for a time, only to now be ripped away again, and Tim found himself wanting fiercely to _stay stay stay stay stay let me stay_. That seemed about as likely as Jack and Janet Drake rising from their graves and scooping him up into a warm group hug. So, ever the pragmatist, Tim had wrapped that wish up and tucked it deep with all of his other deferred hopes and dreams.

But that didn’t mean that he stopped wishing entirely. Even when his big dreams faltered and collapsed, Tim kept himself buoyed with little desires, like narrow sandbars that lifted him just enough above the current to save him from being dragged under. He never stopped hoping. Never stoped dreaming. Never stopped _wanting_ even though his life was nothing more than an unbroken string of denials and setbacks.

Over the past week and a half, Tim had kept himself afloat by daydreaming about pushing Charles Drake out a window. Or maybe stamping “I support industrialized logging” onto his forehead and dropping him off on Pamela Isley’s doorstep. Tim did his best not to be picky.

He had done his best to avoid his uncle over the past week and a half, a difficult task since Charles was ostensibly in town _for_ him. Not that Charles was at all interested in being a supportive, caring uncle. He kept in nearly constant contact with Tim, but there were no words of condolence, no apologies for being absent for literally Tim’s entire life, no gestures of comfort. No, Charles Duke didn’t seem capable of that sort of emotional labor. What he was very capable at was giving orders.

_Timothy, you’ll be sitting with me at the service. Timothy, we’ll see to getting your father a proper headstone. Timothy, you will return to my hotel after the burial; no need to impose on Mr. Wayne any longer. Timothy, send my secretary your vital statistics for the custody arrangement. Timothy, Timothy, Timothy—_

It was enough to make Tim consider changing his own name. Not that that would completely help. Charles had called him Tom the first time they had met inside the church, and Tim could only thank the stars that none of the team had been in earshot. He was used to being insignificant, but to be so insignificant that your closest living relative didn’t even know your own name? Pathetic.

Well, Charles was more than making up for the name swap now. _Timothy, Timothy, Timothy..._

A few years ago, Tim might have immediately folded under the barrage of orders. But after a few years withstanding the gauntlet of Bruce, Dick, and Damian, he at least managed to sink at a slow enough speed that it looked like his own choice. Rather than abandoning Wayne Manor entirely, for example, Tim moved back into his own house to devote his full attention to cataloguing its contents for the estate sale. He had resisted the little commands Charles gave as best he could when he thought they were wrong or unhelpful. He had avoided all talk of custody and had “forgotten” to contact Charles’s secretary. 

But he was so tired, and every time Tim resisted Charles’s domineering ways, he had a little less to give. Now, after eleven days of text and phone calls, Charles had bestirred himself to come to the Drake family home. Tim still wasn’t sure why. Between his inability to concentrate and Charles’s propensity to drone on, he had only caught every third word.

Tim leaned against the edge of the dining table and fiddled with a teaspoon, watching mesmerized as the sunlight flashed off the silver. For kicks, he made it flash out SOS, which tempted a tiny smile to his lips, but the expression was gone almost as soon as it appeared. The part of his brain that was monitoring his uncle relayed that Charles was telling some unnecessary anecdote about a horse race and a dog-faced woman. Or a dog race and a horse-faced woman? Whatever.

Tim carefully placed the teaspoon in the box next to him and rubbed at his eyes. Moving back to the mansion had been a mistake. Wayne Manor was no party central, but its veins still thrummed with living, breathing people. The Drake estate was nothing more than a shrouded corpse, Tim a virus clinging to a life source that had gone dark. He spent his days packing and cataloguing and trying not to run face first into the memories that crowded the halls. He spent his nights clinging unabashedly to the stuffed bear he had brought from Cass’s pile and trying not to suffocate under the layer of ghosts and dust entombing his bed.

“I still don’t understand why you insist on doing this unnecessary work yourself.”

Tim choked back a sigh. What was unnecessary about saying goodbye to the last pieces of his entire life? The house needed to be sold. He and Charles both agreed on that. What did the man care if Tim was the one to prepare it?

“This is my house,” Tim explained for what felt like the tenth time. “These are my parents’ things. I want to do it.”

 _Mine. MY house. MY parents. I have so few things left to me, so let me do with them what I want._

Tim’s brow creased as Charles picked up the teapot he had been polishing, scraping its foot against the lacquered tabletop in the process. For a moment, he pictured... No. He was too tired to even summon up a satisfying fantasy scenario. All he could enjoy was a momentary homicidal fizzle, and then he was left with the cold hunk of ice in his chest.

“As long as this mess is wrapped up quickly,” Charles drawled as he checked his teeth in the reflection of the teapot. 

Another fizzle of rage, and Tim’s jaw clenched. Maybe _this_ was the moment when he would finally put his foot down, tell Charles to clear out and go home, that rats weren’t welcome under this roof.

“We have tickets on the 10 AM flight back to the West Coast on Sunday. Anything you haven’t finished by then can be taken care of by someone else. I have a board meeting Monday morning that I will not miss.”

_We?_

Had Charles managed to wrangle custody from a judge, then? Even as Tim wondered, he knew what a foolish question that was. Charles Drake didn’t need Tim’s permission or cooperation to take over. He was a close relative, didn’t have an egregious criminal record, and he had the means to take in a stray. What judge would say no?

Tim’s hand gripped the edge of the table as his knees quivered. Leave Gotham? Leave the Waynes? Even though he had told Damian that was the most likely outcome, he had thought... he had hoped...

“I can’t leave.” Even to his own ears, Tim’s voice sounded strained and so very young. “My... my life is here. I live here. In Gotham.”

_My home is here. My **family** is here. EVERYTHING is HERE._

“Don’t be silly,” came Charles’s immediate reply. “There’s nothing for you here. Your parents are dead. Your belongings are being sold. I’ve arranged a buyer for the house, and your father’s assets will be liquidated and held in trust for you until you come of age, with me as your legal trustee and guardian. What could you possibly have to keep you in this dismal little city?”

 _Batman! Batman needs me!_ HE was the one who had saved Bruce from himself after Jason had died. HE was the one who had pulled Bruce from the time vortex. Tim had spent the last few years doing everything he could to be indispensable to Bruce, and if he had to have faith in anything, he would have faith in that.

In his anger and panic, Tim only barely managed to catch himself from saying just that to Charles. Instead, he choked back Batman’s name and instead countered, “What about Bruce and the Waynes?”

Tim knew Charles hated Bruce the way a tall man hates a taller man. He wasn’t used to being cast in someone else’s shadow. But he also knew Charles knew to fear Bruce in Bruce’s own city. So Tim expected some consideration at best, annoyance at worst.

Tim hadn’t expected Charles to laugh right in his face.

“Don’t be silly.” Charles waved the teapot dismissively, then set it down on the table. Tim immediately snatched it back up and placed it in the box where it belonged. “Your internship can be transferred to my company. I’m sure we can find a place for you at Drake Holdings.”

Tim tried to explain that he couldn’t just _leave_. He owed them more than that. Surely Charles would understand the concept of that debt? They were his family. Family wasn’t supposed to just _leave_.

“They’ll be happy to be rid of you, I’m sure.” 

Tim’s breath stuttered as his uncle spoke into the dust-flecked air the words that had wallpapered his nightmares for as long as he could remember. It almost would have been easier to take if Charles had spoken angrily, but he didn’t even look at Tim. His gaze was off somewhere over Tim’s shoulder, as if Tim wasn’t worth the effort of eye contact. As if they were two awkward acquaintances at a dinner party neither had wanted to attend.

“Bruce Wayne is a powerful and busy man, and as one myself, you can take my word that he will not mind in the slightest. Do you honestly think he’ll be sorry to no longer have you underfoot? You were a nuisance that he took in-- well, come to think of it, I don’t know why. Charity, perhaps. Or a rich man’s whim. Whatever the case, he will be pleased to have his home free of interlopers.”

Once, on patrol, Tim had gotten separated from the other birds in a fight. It had gone pretty well, considering how badly he’d been outnumbered, until his foot had hit some loose asphalt chunks and he’d gone sprawling. The breath had been knocked out of him, and before he could struggle back to his feet, he’d been encircled by three thugs who then proceeded to kick the living snot out of him. It had been terrifying and painful. He’d been bedridden for days. Had had nightmares for weeks.

This was a hundred times worse, each of Charles’s words more painful than any steel-toed boot to the ribs. At least then he had known he just had to hold out for Batman to rescue him. Now, he was alone.

 _Bruce Wayne won’t mind._

Would he? Would Bruce mind? Or would Tim’s disappearance cause not so much as a ripple on the surface of Wayne Manor?

 _Underfoot... a nuisance... a charity case... a rich man’s whim..._

Tim’s shoulders curled in under the verbal blows, and he pressed his palm against his rib cage. He pictured the team sprawled on the couch in the den for movie night, happily taking up the extra space he’d left behind. He pictured Bruce’s sigh of relief at the peace his absence left. No more fights with Damian. No more tension with Dick. No more surprise attacks from Jason. He pictured his room at Wayne Manor empty. Or worse, filled by another boy. Someone smarter, funnier, stronger, _better._

Tim’s chest heaved with panic. He was down and he was trapped and no one was coming for him and no one would miss him and Charles was calling him an _interloper_ and hearing someone else use Damian’s pet slur was like taking an uppercut when he already couldn’t breathe and—

“I had no idea we were so close that you could presume to know my wishes, Charlie.” Both Charles and Tim jumped as Bruce’s well-cultured voice spoke from the previously empty space near the kitchen.

Charles turned to answer, his embarrassment already smoothed over by a phony smile, and Tim tried to use the moment to regain his composure. How much had Bruce heard? Enough, by the low growl under his words, but what did he object to? What Charles had said or that he had been crass enough to say it? Tim swallowed hard against the rising sick in the back of his throat, only to nearly startle again when Bruce stepped around Charles and placed a tray on the table next to Tim.

“Alfred sent me with lunch and instructions to extract a promise that you’ll be over at five for dinner. He wants your opinion on the sauce for the pasta puttanesca.” The words were gentle, not pitying, but kind, but Tim couldn’t meet Bruce’s eyes.

Tim nodded, gaze on his feet, then froze as a large hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed. He could count on one hand the number of times Bruce had touched him in a non-emergency situation, and half of those had happened since Jack’s initial illness. Bruce Wayne did not do physical affection. Sitting with Tim on his dead father’s bed or holding his hand as he cried himself to sleep was one thing. But Tim wasn’t crying. Charles was here watching. And Bruce was two days shy of being free of Tim for good.

Bruce kept his hand on Tim’s shoulder even as he pivoted to talk to Charles. Tim was deaf to their argument, his focus on the warmth spreading through his shoulder by that inexplicable hand. Or, not entirely deaf. He heard what they were saying—what Bruce was saying—but the words didn’t make sense. 

_Brightened my home... a comfort... happy to keep... never been in my way... leave him..._

Was he dreaming? Or dead? Had he died instead of Jack? Because that was the only explanation for those words coming out of Bruce Wayne’s mouth about anyone, but especially about Tim. But Tim could still feel Bruce’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him away from Charles and behind Bruce’s broad back, sheltering him from view. Then Bruce let go to step toward Charles, and the sudden absence snapped Tim back into focus.

“What’s Tim’s favorite brand of coffee?”

 _What?_ Tim thought even as Charles echoed the question aloud.

“Coffee,” Bruce snapped. “Favorite brand. Come on, that’s an easy one. Something any  _family_  of Tim’s would know. No? What about his favorite movie?”

“Bruce?” Tim took a small step forward, ready to reel Bruce back in. But Bruce was just getting started, and for every question he asked, he took another step forward, driving Charles back and away from Tim.

“What does he want to do with his life? Where does he want to go to college? What’s his favorite flavor Skittle? Come on!” 

Bruce’s shoulders were tight with rage, making Tim’s eyes go wide. What _was_ this? Bruce didn’t lose control. It wasn’t part of his persona. Heck, he hadn’t seen _Batman_ lose control since Jason, and that was only because Bruce had thought he’d lost his son.

“Bruce?” Tim tried again, louder this time, only to jerk backward as Bruce drove one powerful forearm against Charles’s chest and pinned the other man to the wall.

“What’s his middle name?” Bruce demanded, nearly shouting now. “WHAT’S YOUR NEPHEW’S MIDDLE NAME, CHARLES?”

Tim couldn’t let him hurt Charles. Not because he cared about Charles, but because he cared about _Bruce_ , and attacking another person was not something Bruce Wayne did out of the cowl.

“Bruce!” Tim cried, springing forward. “Bruce, stop! Let him go! Bruce! BRUCE!”

He managed to get ahold of Bruce’s other arm and used his full body weight to yank the older man backward. Geez, Bruce was _shaking._ Tim pulled him back to the table, as far away as he could from Charles, letting go only when Bruce’s broad shoulders deflated and slumped.

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Bruce said, his voice no louder than a whisper now. “I told myself that this had to be your decision and no one else’s. I don’t want to make it for you.”

Tim held perfectly still as Bruce reached out and cradled the side of his face with his hand. One large, calloused thumb rubbed against Tim’s cheekbone gently, as if wiping away tears that weren’t there. Not now, anyways.

_Bruce, don’t. Don’t be nice to me then send me away. I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I—_

“I’d fight for you.” 

Tim’s eyes flew up to meet Bruce’s. Bruce’s blue gaze was steady and clear and... Soft. Almost sad, the way he looked sometimes when Dick would fall asleep in the living room after a long night of patrol. If he thought no one was looking, Bruce would stand at the end of the couch and gaze down at his eldest like he thought Dick would disappear at any moment. Or had disappeared, only to come back as someone new. Like he was proud and resigned all at the same time. But that made sense. That was Dick, a boy Bruce loved more than his own life, a boy he had watch grow up from a gap-toothed circus orphan to a full-grown man. Tim... wasn’t. He was just Tim. Why would Bruce look at him that way?

“If you wanted to stay, I’d fight for you, and I promise you that I’d win. But this is your life and your choice. And he  _is_  your uncle.”

 _He’s your family,_ Tim’s brain supplied. That’s what Bruce meant. But also, _I could be your family, too._

Tim could have basked in that moment for a lifetime, but Charles had found his tongue, so Tim cut him off before he could draw Bruce’s attention away again.

“He’s a douchebag.” Tim’s voice wobbled, but he swallowed and kept going. _Look at me, Bruce. Pay attention to me._

“My dad didn’t even like him. Always said he was an opportunistic parasite with bad taste in opera and worse taste in wives. They hadn’t even talked in years.”

Tim bit out each word with spiteful glee, deepening his voice just enough to echo Jack’s disdain, and then delighting in the whisper of a smile on Bruce’s lips.

Bruce’s hand was still on his face, so Tim reached up and placed his own hand atop Bruce’s. _Don’t go. Don’t let me go._

He wasn’t too proud to beg. “Can I really stay, Bruce? I want to stay. I never wanted to go, but I thought I had to. Please let me stay.”

_Please don’t let me be alone. I want to stay. I need to stay. **You’re** my family, please please please, Bruce, don’t leave me, too._

Tim choked back a sob as Bruce moved his hand, but instead of releasing him as Tim had feared, instead Bruce pulled Tim into a tight hug. “Of course you can. You will _always_ have a home with me.”

Entire body shaking with silent tears, Tim threw his arms around Bruce and buried his face in Bruce’s chest. Bruce’s arms enveloped him, and Tim sobbed in earnest. His nose filled with Bruce’s subtle aftershave, the laundry detergent Alfred used to make everything feel soft and clean, the faint hint of diesel fuel and leather. This was _right._ This was home.

Tim had thought finding his place would feel different somehow. Like in the moment he took Bruce’s hand and they strode out of the Drake estate toward the Manor, there would be this great rending of reality, forever hewing his life into Before and After. 

And he was right. Because no matter what happened now, he knew Bruce would never let him go. He had a family. A place to belong. A home. He was not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! This is truly, finally, the closing chapter for this fic. I have told my muse to pipe down and turn his attention in a different direction. Thank you all for being patient with my surprise additions. Two quick notes before I let you all go.
> 
> First, if you don't know, this chapter is shown from Bruce's POV in this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178267/chapters/32681832 Trying to show both sides without boring myself with repeated dialogue was HARD.
> 
> And second, re: the chapter before this, I had wanted to have a scene where Charles was a jerk to Tim out in Gotham somewhere and Jason saw and sliced his tires or something, but I couldn't make it work. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
